Father John A. Hardon, S.J. Archives

Spiritual Exercises

Ignatian Retreat

(July 1974)

The Resurrection of Christ and Our Experience of Peace

Conference by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

If there is one hidden theme in the New Testament, it is the
fact that while Christ certainly wants His followers to imitate Him in
carrying His cross and to deny themselves to prove that they are His disciples,
at the same time He promises them not only an eventual and eternal glory
with Him in heaven, but already on this earth, a deep-souled happiness.

In general we might say there are two functions to this happiness
that a faithful follower of Christ should expect. The first role of happiness
is to be that of a witness to the world. If there is one thing which both
the Second Vatican Council and Pope Paul VI made very clear, it is that
religious should be witnesses to the world.

We witness by testifying to the truth of that which we believe.
But a witness not only gives evidence) he also, somehow, is to prove that
his testimony is true. We can convince the world that Christ deserves
to be followed, that His teaching is indeed the teaching of the Son of
God become man, if and insofar as we witness to the happiness which our
following of Christ and our obedience to His teaching produces. That proof
is incontestable. If people see us genuinely and not spuriously happy,
they will want to learn the secret that we evidently have learned.

This is the logic of the Church's teaching, especially to
religious, of being witnesses to a world that sorely needs Christ but
must first be convinced that Christ is worth following. We witness by
proving to the world that the one thing every human heart desires, we
have found. We show we have found it by being truly, deeply happy. Hence
the importance of being truly faithful to Christ, because He promises
those who follow Him that joy which the world cannot give and the kind
of peace that no one else but He can confer. That is "happiness as
a witness".

But the particular focus of this conference is rather on "happiness
as an experience in ourselves". We shall take as the context for
our reflections Christ's appearance to the apostles on Easter Sunday night
and then go on, after we briefly reflect on the narrative as given to
us by the Evangelist, to see how Christ wants us to be at peace and to
become apostles of peace.

First then, the narrative. Saint John writes no less than
eighteen verses right after the account of Christ's deathand John doesn't
waste a wordto describe the visit of Mary of Magdala to the tomb, she
the sinner. That is a lot of verses to spend on a sinful woman: As far
as we can tell, according to the Evangelist's account, Christ appeared
to her first, before the apostles.

Christ knew His priorities. He respected precedence. He didn't choose to appear
first to her except for a profound reason, so much so that she is called
the Apostle of the Apostles. You recall He said, "Mary" and
she, "Rabboni". And then He gave a commission to her and through
her to them. Then came His evening appearance to the disciples. Quoting
John,

In the evening of that same day, the first day
of the week, the doors were closed in the room
where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews.
Jesus came and stood among them. He said to
them, 'Peace be with you', and showed them his
hands and his side. The disciples were filled
with joy when they saw the Lord, and he said
to them again, 'Peace be with you.

As the Father sent me,
so am I sending you.

After saying this he breathed on them and said:

'Receive the Holy Spirit.
For those whose sins you forgive,
they are forgiven;
for those whose sins you retain,
they are retained.'

Evidently Christ wanted His first message to the apostles, the foundation of
His Church, to be peace. He not only spoke the word twice as soon as He
appeared to them, but He made it a commandment. The Greek is imperative,
"Peace be with you", or "Be at peace".

What does it mean to be at peace? It means first of all to have the joy of knowing
that, "Although I am a sinner, my sins are forgiven". And this
is not emotion; this is knowledge based on faith. It means to have the
happiness of conviction. We usually don't associate happiness with a state
of mind; we should, otherwise what we call happiness is an ephemeral
sentiment. Peace is the happiness of conviction that, "My past life
will not be held against me". We are all sinners. We know it; we
don't need to invoke an article of faith to know that we have sinned.
What we need to know on faith is that though we have sinned, we are absolutely
sure (that is conviction), "These sins of mine will not be held against
me".

It means to have the experience of God's friendship. We can say, "Although
I have so often failed Him, His mercy (proved by becoming man and dying
for me) is greater than my infidelity. My sins are as a drop of water
in the burning furnace of His infinite love. I can have the serenity of
spirit that comes with the confidence of realizing that God is my loving
FatherI know it, I am sure of itand that I am His loving, though wayward
child."

If there was ever an age in human history when the possession
of peace is prized above everything else, it is today. Countless millions
in our own country, which is the most affluent society in the annals of
man humanly speaking, have everything. Sometimes we don't realize it,
but other cultures know it better than we: ours is the most unsettled,
insecure, unstable, worried, harried, anxious, troubled society on the
face of the earth. Here millions of dollars are spent, not annually, but
weekly, in consulting specialists for one purpose, to give people some
certitude in their anxiety, some temporary peace of mind. Even those who
do not believe what we believe, but who know what torments the human spirit,
are unanimous in saying that the center of all the trials and worries
and anxieties is a sense of guilt. Consequently, it is as though the world
of unbelief is telling us what a precious treasure Christ came to give
as His first gift on the day He rose from the dead. Having redeemed us
from sin, He tells us first to be at peace.

How does Christ assure us of this precious peace, the greatest
possession on earth this side of heavenly glory? He first of all assures
it to us by the sacrament of His peace, the sacrament of penance, which
the Church declares He instituted on Easter Sunday night. It is meant
to give us peace. Hence the value of receiving the graces that come to
us through this sacrament, no matter how little or how much we have to
confess. Let no one deceive you on this point; allow no one to tell you
that confession is only for grave sins. One of the main functions of this
sacrament for priests and religious is to deepen in them that intimacy
with God whose experience is peace. One of its sacramental purposes, therefore,
is precisely to reduce anxiety, worry, and frustration by the divine alchemy
of grace available especially in this sacrament. That is His first way
of assuring us of His peace, that He tells us we are to possess.

He has also given us beyond the sacrament of reconciliation
the graces of peace being offered for us throughout the world through
the efficacious invocation and prayers of the Church asking God to give
us this gift. Think of how often the word peace occurs in the Church's
liturgy. Reflect on the fact that every Mass said daily (almost 400,000
times a day and by now countless millions of times is offered for obtaining
God's mercy on us sinners.

This is the heart of the conference. We pray constantly for
ourselves and for others; and the Church is praying for us, that God might
have mercy on us sinners. What does this constant begging of God's mercy
on us sinners mean? Haven't we been forgiven? Is it just to reassure ourselves
that we have been? What is all this repetitious pleading for mercy? I
am not now referring to those who are estranged from God. It is clear
enough that God's mercy for them is the grace of repentance, to be reconciled
with Him.

In every Hail Mary we pray "for us sinners". What
do we mean? We mean that an essential part of God's mercy is that peace
which is tranquility subjectively experienced, which comes from order
objectively when a soul is in the friendship of God. First and fundamentally,
begging for God's mercy always means asking that those who are somehow
estranged from God or who are positively in the state of sin will obtain
from Him the gift to see their wrong doing, repent, and be reconciled.
But being reconciled with God is not enough, since merely because we are
really and objectively in God's friendship in itself is no assurance that
we experience the fact and realize we are in His friendship. The more
we look at our past or just look into our souls and see the weakness and
the evil tendencies we have, we become more and more horrified and frankly,
even terrified. We have a fallen human nature; we know the sins of which
this nature is capable. For us to be serene and tranquilnot anxious,
worried, concerned, or despondentin a word, for us to be at peace, it
is not enough to know only with our minds, believing that God is merciful.

Consequently, I call peace "the experience of God's mercy".
It is the realization, the awareness, the consciousness, the conviction
that God is with me and I am with Him. And for that we must constantly
pray, because there is one thing to which we are all so awfully subject,
that is, the opposite of peace. The more we strive after perfection,
the more the ideals of the spiritual life are presented to us and we reflect
on them, the more dreadful seems the chasm between us and the Christ that
we are supposed to become like. To not only be doing what we should be
doing, but to experience the joy of God's being pleased with usfor that
we need grace, especially this priceless grace of peace. No books will
do it, nor sermons, nor homilies; nothing but sheer grace.

We have too many things to worry about and that make us anxious;
too many, that if we allowed ourselves, to make us despair. Hence the
mandate of the Savior to be at peace. We have consolation in knowing that
the Church militant on earth is praying, even while we are militant in
struggling against our passions, against the bad example around us and
against the evil spirit. Even while we are militant, we can be at peace.

There is the Church's constant prayer in and outside of the liturgy. Every Hail
Mary is a prayer for interior peace. Every time we pray collectively "pray
for us sinners", we are asking that we might not only be forgiven,
but that we might experience God's forgiveness. But beyond that, there
is the efficacious treasury of Christ's merits. One of the most important
things that this treasury is intended to gain for us is God's mercy -
twice over: once in being forgiven, and once again in knowing that we
are forgiven. Think for a moment of how much suffering there is in the
Christian worldin hospitals, in asylums, in war-torn countries, in broken
homes, in broken hearts, in communist held territoriessufferings that
only God fully understands. All of these merits are part of the Church's
treasury on which we draw, to be assured that God is indeed merciful.

None of us doubts that the apostolate of peace is a worthy apostolate. It is,
in fact, highly recommended to us by Christ as one of the Beatitudes.
If we are going to be peacemakers in the profound sense of assisting people
to experience God's peace, not only in reconciling people either with
God or between themselves, the first condition is that we ourselves are
at peace. Peace is one possession that no one gives unless he has it.
This means that we must correspond with the graces of peace that God is
giving us, that we learn to let go. Christ does not want us to lack peace;
when we are not at peace, Christ wants us to overcome that state of mind.
He does not want us to be worried or anxious. The first condition of a
peacemaker is personal peace and that takes effort.

The second condition is telling people, beginning with those who are nearest
and dearest to us, that they have a right to be at peace; in fact, they
have an order from Christ! Anxiety is surely permitted by God, but He
wants us not to give in to it.

Thirdly, in working in this apostolate of peace, we have to
cultivate the habit of listening to people who have troubles, to acquire
not just a listening ear, but what is more important, a listening heart.
Christ wants us to be channels of peace. It is not to allow people to
pour all their troubles into our souls, especially when their troubles
would then become our troubles; but people do want to have someone with
whom they can at times share what is on their minds.

Finally, be sure never to leave anyone who happens to be in
trial without telling that person to pray. Of all the passages of the
New Testament, there are few that are more practical than James 5:13,
"If any one of you is in trouble, he should pray". Prayer is
the sovereign remedy for trial. It is also the talisman of peace. It means,
of course, that we ourselves have learned that when we are in trouble,
we instinctively and immediately pray. It may be as short a prayer as
the invocation of the Holy Name. But immediately we take ourselves to
God, who has evidently permitted the trial; and we ask Him to let us see
why He wants us to bear the trial, if it is something that we must carry,
or to let go of the worry if it is not worth being anxious about.

Every time the mind begins to become anxious or worried, right
away breathe a prayer and discover that peace is ready at hand. This grace
of peace like all graces is there for the asking, but it must be asked
for. Let us ask our Savior, the Prince of Peace, to teach us what He meant
when He said that He came to give that kind of peace which the world cannot
give.